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Organizers of the three-day anti-corruption protest at the People Power Monument, which will start on Sunday, are hoping for a miracle that would lead to regime change.
Regardless of whoever replaces the president – either Vice President Sara Duterte or a civilian-military junta – they simply wanted Ferdinand Marcos Jr out of power.
Of course, the organizers hope hundreds of thousands will gather for three days to denounce the corruption in the government’s infrastructure projects, replicating the January 2001 popular uprising that led to President Joseph Estrada’s resignation
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The EDSA 2 uprising was triggered by an envelope that Estrada’s allies in the Senate refused to open during an impeachment trial, prompting a mammoth crowd at the EDSA Shrine.
After three days of protest, the military, led by General Angelo Reyes, stepped in and withdrew its support from President Estrada, ending his presidency.
Organizers of the three-day protest are also hoping a similar event will happen at the People Power Monument, pushing Marcos out of power and sharing his father’s fate in 1986.
Will the military intervene and support the protest?
In Madagascar, elite military troops called in to quell a civilian protest against a corrupt regime instead joined the protesters, forcing the leader to flee aboard a French military aircraft.
General Romeo Brawner, the AFP chief of staff, has already doused cold water on the protest, declaring the military will remain a political and professional.
However, two recent videos circulating on social media could fuel people’s anger toward the president and could likely force the military to intervene and end the country’s chaotic political situation.
Both videos were presumably uploaded by former congressman Elizaldy Co of Ako-Bicol Party List to defend himself and accuse the president of involvement in the kickback scandal.
In the first video, Co said President Marcos instructed him, through budget secretary Amenah Pangandaman, to insert 100 billion pesos worth of infrastructure projects under the 2025 budget.
The list of projects were in a sheet of paper pulled out from the president’s brown leather bag, he added.
In the second video, Co claimed the president got all 25 percent kickback from the 100 billion pesos he had inserted in the 2025 budget.
Not a single peso went to him and to show proof that the cash were delivered to the president and former speaker, Leyte Congressman Martin Romualdez, he showed photos of some luggages where the money was placed in.
The videos were the “smoking gun” the protest organzers would likely use to provoke the participants to call for Marcos to resign from his position.
The timing of the showing of the two videos were excellent. The organizers were hoping the videos would trigger the desired outcome of the protest action.
However, Co’s explosive revelation fell short to pin down the president as these were mere hearsays.
For instance, when Co said he was instructed by the president to insert 100 billion pesos in infrastructure projects in the 2025 budget, he did not directly receive the instructions from Marcos. It was relayed to him by the budget secretary.
In his second video, he showed several suitcases which he claimed were used to deliver cash to the president.
However, he failed to show the cash and the suitcases appeared too small to contain 48 million pesos, which another witness, Orly Guteza, to have delivered.
There were inconsistencies in the testimony of Guteza and what Co said in the video. Guteza’s testimony in the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee and Co’s stories in his two videos lacked credibility.
It is best for Co to return to the Philippines and give sworn statements to government investigators so his accusations against the president carry weight in court. As it stands, Co’s two videos are just optics for the three-day protest and nothing is proven that Marcos benefitted from the kickback scandal.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of this publication.
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